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Propagating Conviviality: Waiwai Cultural Transformation Of Moral Depravity, George F. Mentore May 2024

Propagating Conviviality: Waiwai Cultural Transformation Of Moral Depravity, George F. Mentore

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This essay considers the problematics of anthropological translations when its responsibility to the codes of its modernist subjectivity persuades us to defer judgment on interpretations made of indigenous semiotics of life. It begins with this full disclosure before attempting to describe, from a translation of a Waiwai myth, how one can produce a guilty reading about their privileging of concern for conviviality. The Waiwai bodily feeling of well-being must be in place before relations of trust can be enacted. Transforming the vial aggressive feelings of strangers becomes a priority for hosting them. Maintaining feelings of conviviality within the community is …


A Experiência E A Moral De Um Mito, Ruben Caixeta De Queiroz May 2024

A Experiência E A Moral De Um Mito, Ruben Caixeta De Queiroz

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

A partir da análise de um mito de um povo (Katxuyana) das Guianas e da família linguística Caribe, este artigo enfatiza a necessidade do relato etnográfico não se distanciar do contexto e da moral da narrativa indígena. O artigo não desmerece a imensa contribuição das teorias e das informações etnográficas acerca das sociedades indígenas da Amazônia, resumidas brevemente, mas apresenta argumentos a favor de um método que dê mais valor à teoria e à prática indígena.


Povos Indígenas Nas Guianas: Etnografias Contemporâneas, Luísa G. Girardi, Leonor Valentino, Virgínia Amaral May 2024

Povos Indígenas Nas Guianas: Etnografias Contemporâneas, Luísa G. Girardi, Leonor Valentino, Virgínia Amaral

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Na introdução a este número especial da Tipití, dedicado a etnografias recentes realizadas junto a povos indígenas na Amazônia guianense, sobrevoamos as principais tradições antropológicas que posicionaram a região no centro dos debates da etnologia amazonista. Alternativamente definida como “área linguística”, “área cultural” ou “área etnográfica”, a região das Guianas é compartilhada por coletivos indígenas falantes de idiomas da família Caribe e, em menor medida, de línguas Aruaque, Tupi, Yanomami, Sáliva e Warao, e está associada a algumas das monografias que inauguraram o período moderno da reflexão etnológica sobre o parentesco na Amazônia, além de influentes sínteses comparativas a …


Indigenous Peoples In The Guianas: Contemporary Ethnographies, Luísa G. Girardi, Leonor Valentino, Virgínia Amaral May 2024

Indigenous Peoples In The Guianas: Contemporary Ethnographies, Luísa G. Girardi, Leonor Valentino, Virgínia Amaral

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In the introduction to this special issue of Tipití, dedicated to recent ethnographies conducted among indigenous peoples in Guianese Amazonia, we offer an overview of the main anthropological traditions that have placed the region at the center of debates in Amazonianist ethnology. Alternatively defined as a "linguistic area," "cultural area," or "ethnographic area," the Guianas region is shared by indigenous collectives of the Cariban family and, to a lesser extent, Arawak, Tupi, Yanomami, Sáliva, and Warao-speaking groups, and is associated with some of the monographs that inaugurated the modern period of ethnological reflection on kinship in Amazonia, as well as …


Kita Vai À Kwamalasamutu, Fabio Ribeiro May 2024

Kita Vai À Kwamalasamutu, Fabio Ribeiro

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No contexto de uma série de encontros entre pessoas zo'é e tiriyó na região da fronteira Brasil-Suriname, o presente artigo aborda a experiência de Kita, jovem zo’é que em 2010 viajou com alguns chefes e pastores tiriyó e permaneceu na aldeia Kwamalasamutu, no sul do Suriname, por alguns meses. A partir de dois relatos de Kita, procuro seguir as múltiplas conexões por ele mobilizadas e articulá-las a problemas relevantes da etnologia das Guianas. Seguindo a proposta metodológica de S. Oakdale (2007) no sentido de ancorar a “economia simbólica da alteridade” em autobiografias ameríndias, o objetivo é imbricar a crônica de …


A Música Na Tradição Indígena Wai Wai, Roque Yaxikma Wai Wai, Ruben Caixeta De Queiroz May 2024

A Música Na Tradição Indígena Wai Wai, Roque Yaxikma Wai Wai, Ruben Caixeta De Queiroz

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Este trabalho trata da história da música na tradição do povo indígena wai wai, um grupo de língua caribe da região guianense. A pesquisa se passa entre os Wai Wai do rio Mapuera (norte do Pará), tendo como foco os conhecimentos de anciãos e as músicas antigas que eles conhecem. Aqui tratamos da definição do que é música e instrumento musical para os Wai Wai, quem pode e quem não pode tocar e/ou ouvir música. Descrevemos as histórias dos lugares antigos de habitação dos Wai Wai, onde moravam outrora, no rio Baracuxi (Kikwo), os nomes das aldeias e os nomes …


Women’S Routes: Gender, Mobility, And Knowledge Among The Makushi Of Southern Guyana, Lisa Katharina Grund May 2024

Women’S Routes: Gender, Mobility, And Knowledge Among The Makushi Of Southern Guyana, Lisa Katharina Grund

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Exploring the journeys of some Makushi women, this article highlights the relevance of gender in the question of (im)mobility and female engagements with the world as central to contemporary Makushi life. Departing from the understanding that the category of space has proven crucial in the theoretical groundwork of the Guiana ethnographic area and drawing on the region’s classical ethnographies, it explores everyday practices of movement of the Makushi people who live along the triple frontier of southern Guyana. Rather than disruptive, these in and out journeys—collective or individual—prove to be crucial to the weaving of community. They are also central …


Don’T Come Crying To My Funeral, Charlotte Hoskins May 2024

Don’T Come Crying To My Funeral, Charlotte Hoskins

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In this article, I describe a Makushi wake in Guyana, where an opposition was drawn between people in mourning and their perception of others who appeared to them to be much more like partygoers. This opposition in affective states was made evident through the enactment of associated oppositions in bodily practices: feeding and eating, speaking and singing, and forms of social availability. Rather than consider the divergence in affective states as a form of moral disorder, I argue that an affective divide allows grief to be expressed by the mourners and safely circumscribed by their still-living community, who continue to …


Arqueologia E História Indígena Na Perspectiva Dos Wai Wai: Um Povo Caribe Das Guianas, Jaime Xamen Wai Wai, Ruben Caixeta De Queiroz May 2024

Arqueologia E História Indígena Na Perspectiva Dos Wai Wai: Um Povo Caribe Das Guianas, Jaime Xamen Wai Wai, Ruben Caixeta De Queiroz

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Este trabalho, inicialmente, apresenta uma breve discussão sobre as novas arqueologias indígenas, seu método e sua relação com os conhecimentos tradicionais. Com base na história oral dos Wai Wai, um povo caribe das Guianas, apresentamos as aldeias antigas situadas ao longo do rio Kikwo e os lugares importantes e presentes na memória do povo wai wai. Consideramos que não somente os artefatos arqueológicos são marcadores das culturas indígenas, mas também as paisagens e os espíritos às quais estão associados. Neste artigo, de modo extensivo, recorremos aos relatos de um ancião, Poriciwi Wai Wai, que menciona festas celebradas nas aldeias antigas, …


Replication And Growth In Cassava Cultivation And Uxorilocal Women’S Relations Among The Waiwai: A Mother's Reckoning With Death And Social Change, Laura H. Mentore May 2024

Replication And Growth In Cassava Cultivation And Uxorilocal Women’S Relations Among The Waiwai: A Mother's Reckoning With Death And Social Change, Laura H. Mentore

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Through an ethnographic examination of the shared capacities of cassava and womanhood for what I term growth and replication, I argue that Waiwai sociality seeks to curtail the trajectory of life towards finite death through the intervening act of cutting and replanting or replicating life in a vegetatively inspired form of the “episodic present” (Strathern 2021). An extended vignette demonstrates how these features of Waiwai sociality take shape in mother-daughter and sister relations at the core of uxorilocal residential living, and in a senior woman’s reckonings with illness, death, and social change.


Vaupés Multilingualism And The Substance Of Language, Stephen Hugh-Jones Nov 2023

Vaupés Multilingualism And The Substance Of Language, Stephen Hugh-Jones

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

By focusing on ordinary conversational language, relying on a notion of “group” derived from unilineal descent theory, and neglecting mythology and ritual, studies of Vaupés Tukanoan multilingualism have inadvertently tended to reproduce a Western ideology of language as marking national identity and concerned with conveying meaning. This paper suggests that attention to musical, ritual, and shamanic contexts reveals multilingualism in a different light, with ritual speech acts as constitutive of social groups, names as vehicles of reproduction, and breath as a substance-like bodily element and source of vitality. The more esoteric, rhetorical, musical, or visual ornamentation is given to breath, …


Clever Animals: Naturalcultural Interactions In Karitiana Hunting Practices (Rondônia, Brazil), Felipe Vander Velden Nov 2023

Clever Animals: Naturalcultural Interactions In Karitiana Hunting Practices (Rondônia, Brazil), Felipe Vander Velden

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article addresses hunting practices and human-animal relations among the Karitiana, a Tupi-Arikém-speaking indigenous people in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon, asserting that if humans can learn from animals in long-lasting hunting experiences in the forest, animals can also learn how to deal with their human predators as well as their knowledge and techniques. Furthermore, animals must be understood here as species and individuals. This is an almost natural conclusion drawn from Amazonian ethnography, which suggests that distinctions between humans and the nonhumans that we call animals are not classified according to a categorization in which human beings have resourcefulness and …


Introduction: Indigenous Multilingualism In Lowland South America, Patience Epps Nov 2023

Introduction: Indigenous Multilingualism In Lowland South America, Patience Epps

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Recent decades have seen an exponential growth in our understanding of the indigenous languages of lowland South America – from their structures and interrelationships to the dynamics of their day-to-day use and the ways they are conceptualized by their speakers. These advances highlight not only the diversity of languages in lowland South America, but also the complexity of the dynamics of interaction among speakers in multilingual settings. The region is home to a range of interactive indigenous ‘regional systems’, such as the Vaupés, Upper Xingu, and other areas, where multiple languages have thrived alongside each other for generations, and interaction …


Two Multilingual Regions In Southwestern Amazonia, Hein Van Der Voort Nov 2023

Two Multilingual Regions In Southwestern Amazonia, Hein Van Der Voort

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Southwestern Amazonia is one of the most linguistically diverse regions of the Americas. It is possible that traditional Indigenous small-scale multilingualism used to exist in two neighboring regions in what is now Rondônia, on the Brazilian side of the Guaporé River. Permanent contact with representatives of Western society from the beginning of the twentieth century onwards led to great demographic, social, cultural, and economic upheaval among the Indigenous societies in the Rio Branco-Colorado and the Apediá-Corumbiara river basins. Early ethnographic reports suggest that these societies were characterized by traditional small-scale multilingualism. In this article, I summarize the evidence for this …


The Way Of Warriors: Annotated Narratives Of The Mebengokre (Kayapo) In Brazil, By Gustaaf Verswijver, John Hemming Nov 2023

The Way Of Warriors: Annotated Narratives Of The Mebengokre (Kayapo) In Brazil, By Gustaaf Verswijver, John Hemming

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.


Multilingual Pantanal And Its Decay, Gustavo Godoy, Kristina Balykova Nov 2023

Multilingual Pantanal And Its Decay, Gustavo Godoy, Kristina Balykova

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Historically, the Pantanal wetlands were inhabited by diverse ethnicities belonging to various linguistic groups, including Bororoan, Arawakan, Tupian, Gauicuruan, and Zamucoan, as well as some isolates and unclassified languages. Numerous ethnic groups disappeared without leaving any records of their languages, leaving behind only a list of ethnonyms. A point of confluence of different peoples that also circulated in other major South American areas, the Pantanal was a place with high linguistic diversity. Trade networks surrounded and permeated the area, as described in the earliest accounts by Portuguese and Spanish colonizers. As Indigenous groups were affected by colonial disputes over labor …


The Age Of The Onanya - Regarding The Spread Of Ayahuasca Use Throughout The Ucayali Basin, Carlos Suárez-Álvarez Nov 2023

The Age Of The Onanya - Regarding The Spread Of Ayahuasca Use Throughout The Ucayali Basin, Carlos Suárez-Álvarez

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

The spread of ayahuasca shamanism throughout the Upper Amazon has become a matter of debate among scholars since, in 1994, anthropologist Peter Gow formulated the controversial suggestion that it could be a recent phenomenon in the Ucayali basin, usually considered the stronghold of a millenary tradition. Following Gow, Brabec de Mori argued that the Shipibo-Conibo people, a paradigmatic example of the antique practice of ayahuasca shamanism, adopted both the brew and the associated shamanic practices in a “relatively recent” past. Gow and Brabec pointed at the Maynas missions as the origin of this shamanic complex, and the mestizo and Cocama …


“Letalidade Branca”: Antropologia, Educação E Universidade. Uma Entrevista Com Felipe Tuxá, Felipe Sotto Maior Cruz, Jeovângela De Matos Rosa Ribeir, Vinícius Santos Nonato, Raíza Padilha Scanavaca, Rychelmy Imbiriba Veiga, Amiel Ernenek Mejía Lara Nov 2023

“Letalidade Branca”: Antropologia, Educação E Universidade. Uma Entrevista Com Felipe Tuxá, Felipe Sotto Maior Cruz, Jeovângela De Matos Rosa Ribeir, Vinícius Santos Nonato, Raíza Padilha Scanavaca, Rychelmy Imbiriba Veiga, Amiel Ernenek Mejía Lara

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Esta entrevista realizada com Felipe Sotto Maior Cruz, ou melhor, Felipe Tuxá – antropólogo do povo Tuxá, da Aldeia Mãe de Rodelas, Bahia, primeiro professor indígena da Universidade Federal da Bahia e membro do departamento de Antropologia e Etnologia da mesma instituição – foi parte das atividades do curso “Antropologias Outras: antropologias indígenas”, ministrado no Programa de Pós-graduação em Antropologia da UFBA no segundo semestre de 2022. Conduzida por pessoas que cursaram a disciplina, a entrevista aborda o conceito de “letalidade branca” – cunhado pelo entrevistado –, se debruça sobre os desafios epistemológicos e práticos de uma antropologia indígena, reflete …


Into An Interference Zone: Childbirth And Care Among Mehinako People, Aline Regitano Nov 2023

Into An Interference Zone: Childbirth And Care Among Mehinako People, Aline Regitano

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article addresses issues of care and corporeality during gestation, childbirth, the postpartum period, and childcare through a case study conducted with Mehinako people. Among this Amazonian people, care forms the person, having an elementary function in the daily construction of kinship relations through means of affection. A recent trend has caused expressive transformations in the way women experience corporeality and the making of a person: the displacement of birth from the home to hospitals, motivated by women’s fear, desire, and curiosity. In the city, Indigenous women transit through medical institutions, which I propose may be read as interference zones …


Jean E. Jackson: A Pioneering Ethnographer In The Colombian Amazon, Patience Epps, Danilo Paiva Ramos, Flora Dias Cabalzar Nov 2023

Jean E. Jackson: A Pioneering Ethnographer In The Colombian Amazon, Patience Epps, Danilo Paiva Ramos, Flora Dias Cabalzar

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This essay celebrates the work of Jean E. Jackson, a pioneering female ethnographer who devoted most of her fifty-year career to the Indigenous peoples of Colombia. Her research, represented in an extensive set of publications from the early 1970s to the present, engages with themes of identity, stigma, and social inequality, manifested across a range of contexts. Jackson’s ethnographic contributions include her ground-breaking early work on Indigenous Tukanoan society in the Colombian Vaupés, focusing on the practice of linguistic exogamy (obligatory marriage across language groups) among the Bará people. Later, she expanded her focus to address Indigenous experiences in the …


Language, Exogamy And Ethnicity In The Upper Rio Negro Region, Thiago Chacon, Luis Cayón Nov 2023

Language, Exogamy And Ethnicity In The Upper Rio Negro Region, Thiago Chacon, Luis Cayón

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In this article we explore how languages interact with exogamous social units (e.g., clans and phratries) and descent ideologies (such as having a common mythical ancestor and emergence from the same mythical place) to help organize the multilingual and interethnic societies from the Upper Rio Negro region (URN) in the Amazon. We show that the expected alignment of language boundary, exogamous group and descent group is actually quite unusual. Complex social structures involving the aggregation of clans into larger ethnic groups or marriage alliances with other clans have important variations in the alignment of language, exogamy, and descent ideology. Existing …


Las Nociones O’Dam De Cuerpo Y Persona. Diálogo Interrumpido Entre El Norte De México Y La Amazonía Peruana, Antonio Reyes May 2023

Las Nociones O’Dam De Cuerpo Y Persona. Diálogo Interrumpido Entre El Norte De México Y La Amazonía Peruana, Antonio Reyes

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo reflexionar acerca de las nociones de cuerpo y persona del pueblo o’dam del norte de México, partiendo de los principios que Peter Gow y otros autores han observado para las poblaciones nativas de la región amazónica. Los cuerpos y las personas no son cosas “dadas” o “naturales”, sino que son el resultado de procesos constantes y complejos que articulan relaciones sociales, cosmologías y significaciones. Para el pueblo yine del río Bajo Urubamba investigado por Gow, el cuerpo y sus deseos se encuentran en el corazón de la economía y sirven como punto de unión …


Ritual (And Myth) Transformations In The Gran Chaco, Rodrigo Juan Villagra Carron May 2023

Ritual (And Myth) Transformations In The Gran Chaco, Rodrigo Juan Villagra Carron

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Based on the inspiration Peter Gow takes from Lévi-Strauss' canonical formula or double twist and his concept of ensemble, this article aims to illustrate by analogy how the rituals of female initiation, such as the Yammana of the Enlhet-Enenlhet, or male initiation, such as the Debylytá of the Yshiro, exemplify a regional system of "transformation of transformations." In this sense, Gow uses Lévi-Strauss' formula to analyse the myths of the peoples of southeastern Peruvian and western Peruvian-Brazilian Amazonia as a "very specific type of mythic transformation caused by the presence of thresholds, whether cultural or linguistic." The records of …


Review: Of Mixed Blood, Luis Felipe Torres May 2023

Review: Of Mixed Blood, Luis Felipe Torres

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

The review revises the most inportant concepts of the book Of Mixed Blood


“Helpless”: Reflections On Grief And Sociality In Three Amerindian Societies, Giovanna Bacchiddu, Elizabeth Ewart, Courtney Stafford-Walter May 2023

“Helpless”: Reflections On Grief And Sociality In Three Amerindian Societies, Giovanna Bacchiddu, Elizabeth Ewart, Courtney Stafford-Walter

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In this article, we reflect on one of Peter Gow’s key pieces of work, “Helpless,” tracing how his scholarship has informed and influenced our own work, from our experiences in the field to our approaches to analysis. We explore some of the main themes from this piece of writing, including how intersubjectivity is produced by creating relations of mutual dependence—a precondition for sociality. Helplessness is a characteristic of newborn babies as much as it is of those recently bereaved. In both cases, memories of love and care—in short, kinship—are in question. For babies, kin relations have not yet been produced, …


“Too Many Meanings”: Reading “Piro Designs”, Paolo Fortis, Margherita Margiotti May 2023

“Too Many Meanings”: Reading “Piro Designs”, Paolo Fortis, Margherita Margiotti

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This paper explores the notion of painting as meaningful action (Gow 1999) and highlights the productivity of the idea as emerging from, and dovetailing, different strands of thought on the nature of symbols and actions. Bringing together Lévi-Strauss’ intuition on the dynamism and generativity of graphic systems, phenomenological studies on meaning making, and ethnographic analyses of Amazonian theories of corporeality and sociality, Gow has shown how Yine (Piro) designs provide a developmental model that combines ontogenesis and social change. This paper argues for the productivity of this approach in Amerindian studies, in anthropology, and in a dialogue with psychoanalytic theory …


Civilized Elders And Isolated Ancestors: The Multiple Histories Of Contemporary Amazonia, Casey High May 2023

Civilized Elders And Isolated Ancestors: The Multiple Histories Of Contemporary Amazonia, Casey High

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In this article I consider the impact of Peter Gow’s writing on indigenous histories as a key area of research on Amazonia. Building on his study of kinship as history on the Bajo Urubamba (1991) he presented a regional perspective on the dynamic social categories by which Amazonian people understand their relations with various “others.” Focusing on indigenous agency and modes of thought, Gow challenged certain lines of historical thinking that dominated anthropology at the time. I explore how his ethnographic approach to history has influenced a generation of regional scholarship, including my own work on memory and social transformation …


Marginal To Whom? Reflections On Gow's "Purús Song", Magnus Course May 2023

Marginal To Whom? Reflections On Gow's "Purús Song", Magnus Course

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This paper constitutes a personal exploration of the impact of the work of Peter Gow on my own attempts to think through specific ethnographic problems, both in the Mapuche communities of Southern Chile and the Gaelic communities of Western Scotland. I focus in particular on how Gow’s lesser-known essay “Purús Song” inverts received wisdom about the relationships between center and periphery, and between nation-state and Indigenous people. I see this as one iteration of Gow’s broader aim of letting ethnographic realities transform theoretical complacencies.


Indigenous Transformations In The Comunidad Nativa: Rethinking Kinship And Its Limitations In An Expanding Resource Frontier, Evan Killick, Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti May 2023

Indigenous Transformations In The Comunidad Nativa: Rethinking Kinship And Its Limitations In An Expanding Resource Frontier, Evan Killick, Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In Of Mixed Blood, Peter Gow sets out an account of the transformations of kinship and the construction of social relations among Indigenous, mainly Yine (Piro), people of the Bajo Urubamba valley in the early 1980s, when Peru’s “Comunidades Nativas” (“Native Communities”) were receiving their new official titles. We revisit Peter’s proposition by comparing it our more recent ethnographic engagements with Indigenous Asháninka/Ashéninka communities in the region. While tracing continuities from his observations, we also show how social relations now play out in different ways, as certain important resources have become scarcer and the need for …


‘One Piro Man I Knew Well’: A Brief Commentary On An Amazonian Myth And Its History, Leif Grunewald May 2023

‘One Piro Man I Knew Well’: A Brief Commentary On An Amazonian Myth And Its History, Leif Grunewald

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This is a book review for An Amazonian myth and History, to the special volume to honor Peter Gow